[Pkg-erlang-devel] CouchDB packaging updates

[Elliot Murphy]

On Nov 11, 2009, at 10:16 PM, Sam Bisbee <sbisbee at computervip.com>  
wrote:
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> Okay, then maybe that's where my real problem is. If they're not  
> using couchdb,
> then why do they have it installed? And if they're temporarily not  
> using it,
> then why can't they configure it to not run at boot (remove the init  
> script,
> etc.)?

The idea that a user who installs evolution-couchdb in order to be  
able to save contact records in personal CouchDB should need to take  
extra steps to configure the unused system-wide couchdb instance to  
stop running and wasting resources and slowing boot/login time is  
unimaginable to me. So is the idea that my grandfather who buys a Dell  
netbook with Ubuntu pre-installed should need to go disable couchdb  
just because the desktop came with evolution-couchdb already installed  
so that his contact records could sync between his Linux desktop and  
his mobile phone.

I totally agree with you - if the user of evolution-couchdb will not  
make use of the systemwide couchdb, why must we force them to install  
it by only providing couchdb in a single monolithic package that  
starts a system-wide instance? And so thats why I propose a package  
split to allow only installing the parts that are needed.

>  (2) break everything into tiny packages (ex., what's the
> point in having a dev package without man files or debug symbols?

Fitting on a LiveCD is a very good justification for leaving out debug  
symbols, and other such package splits that separate out essential and  
non-essential parts of a program. I have never seen someone split a  
package just because they were bored ;) In this case, it's not the  
size thats the problem but wanting to enable other packages such as  
desktopcouch (which is used by evolution-couchdb) to provide a sane  
configuration that doesn't cause boot-time performance regressions.  
And, the package split is organized in such a way that it doesn't  
cause any surprises for other packages such as Chef that do use a  
system-wide couchdb, annd anyone manually installing couchdb would get  
the system-wide instance running on the default port just as they  
would expect.

I totally get that Ubuntu is not Debian, so please don't take this  
particular discussion to mean that I think the choices made in Ubuntu  
are always or even often the right choices for Debian. I would like  
more Ubuntu developers to contribute directly to Debian, and  
contribute patches back to Debian, and as much as possible solve  
problems we face in Ubuntu in a way that is compatible with and even  
beneficial to Debian and all the other derivatives. The CouchDB  
package split seems like a change that does no harm, and solves a real  
world problem. If I could understand some way that the package split  
was a bad thing I would stop pushing for it immediately, but as things  
are now I still have not seen any reason not to split the package, nor  
any other way to solve the problem.

cheers,
-elliot